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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Monitor calibration--I'm a skeptic
Matt Cashore, Photographer
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South Bend | IN | USA | Posted: 9:16 AM on 12.02.10 |
| ->> Between work and personal I have two Mac desktops and two Mac laptops. All four monitors are different. I finally decided to try the X-Rite Eye-One Display 2 calibration thingy and software. Installed the software, dangled the little doohickey on the monitors and ran the process. Guess what...all four monitors are still different. They're just different in a different way than they were before. Shouldn't they be consistent with each other now? Or do I not understand the whole "calibration" concept...? |
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Butch Miller, Photographer
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Lock Haven | PA | USA | Posted: 10:06 AM on 12.02.10 |
->> If you set the same parameters and ran the profiling in the same lighting conditions, with the monitors set at default settings, they should be close ... maybe not exact especially in the brightness factor ... I have found the best calibration/profiling software for Macs to be Color Eyes Display Pro ... it does a great job with Mac monitors and laptops and brings the brightness levels to proper viewing levels to match finished prints quite nicely.
http://www.integrated-color.com/cedpro/coloreyesdisplay.html |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 5:15 PM on 12.02.10 |
| ->> Yep, they'll never be the same, but as Butch points out, they should be close, particularly when you look at an image as a whole and the relation of colors to one another as opposed to comparing individual colors and test charts. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 10:10 PM on 12.02.10 |
->> My MBP and Eizo display both work well and are calibrated properly, but if you stick them next to each other, they look extremely different... Several factors:
1: Display types. My MBP is a semi-gloss (supposedly matte) screen. It picks up all sorts of junk from the ambient. The Eizo is almost completely independent of the ambient.
2: Color gamut. They tend to calibrate to the end of the screen's ability to output contrast and saturation. The Eizo can display a much wider range of colors and contrast and this comes through all the time. Typically it seems to display a more subdued image, but when you put a really high-contrast or saturated image, suddenly you can see the details that are blown on my MBP screen. This may depend somewhat on what color space you're working in - sRGB will usually look very similar monitor to monitor, but Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB will look increasingly different.
3: Brightness. This is the biggest thing I notice. The Macbook display usually reads best when it's at full brightness, because it's being affected by the ambient light bouncing around inside it. If I turn the brightness down to match the brightness of the Eizo, the blacks and whites suddenly look gray instead of black. If you look at it for a while, you get used to the range it displays, but it loses a lot of shadow detail below 50% brightness. The Eizo tends not to be as bright (probably in my calibration settings), but when you change the brightness you don't notice any difference in range. Whites and blacks are still whites and blacks, just less bright.
Usually the most important thing I look for when I calibrate is that a black-to-white gradient should look black, grey, and white. I don't want major color casts running around in my images. Your eye will usually compensate for anything else that isn't outside of the monitor's gamut. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 10:11 PM on 12.02.10 |
| ->> Also, the other factor I forgot: some LCDs fade towards the edges, and at various viewing angles. |
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Matthew Hinton, Photographer, Assistant
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New Orleans | LA | USA | Posted: 6:16 PM on 12.03.10 |
->> For starters you need to find out if your calibration software sets a luminance value in the unit of cd/m2. You can then set each monitor to the same luminance value, this will make it closer but not exactly the same from screen to screen. But it's important to do this when the monitor has been on for at least 15 minutes especially with older CRT monitors that need time to warm-up.
Another issue with some newer macs with OS 10.6 and that have the new ambient light sensor is the brightness will reset itself over time even if the ambient light sensor is turned off.
There are two ways of dealing with this problem, you can but a piece of black tape over the ambient light sensor and turn on the sensor. Then the brightness will always stay constant.
Or you can make an applescript from here
http://lists.apple.com/archives/applescript-users/2004/Jan/msg00133.html
change the 0.8 value to whatever brightness level matches the correct luminance value from your calibrator / colorimeter.
Then save the script as an Application with the name "Brightness" for example and then go to System Preferences>Accounts
Then click on Login Items and then click the + sign and add the app to your login items.
Then this brightness script will open every time you login and you'll at least know you are the right starting point. |
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